Automated assembly, test, packaging and/or processing systems are widely used in industry for high throughput applications. Examples of such applications are the assembly and testing of electronic circuits, parts handling, and the assembly and testing of medical devices.
However, conventional systems lack expansion capability and flexibility and are extremely expensive, which makes investing in a new piece of equipment not only a difficult financial decision but also a difficult operational decision because it is generally very time and labour (and hence cost) intensive to modify an existing system to perform new, improved or even modified procedures.
Traditionally most machines built for automation assembly are designed to perform a specific function and either made redundant when the product line stops or need to be reconstituted at great cost.
One such system known to the applicant provides integrated guarding, which is clearly beneficial from a safety point of view, but lacks any capacity to expand the system either in hardware or in terms of the control software which governs the operation of the system; that is, at least without requiring extensive re-programming of the control software. The system is also irreversible; i.e. it is not possible to move a workpiece in any direction other than forwards (on to the next step in the process). This system is typical of existing automated assembly, test, packaging and/or test systems, and the kinds of systems whose limitations the present invention seeks to obviate and mitigate.